A wide variety of latches and other devices for restraining movement of cargo items are commonly used in aircraft cargo compartments for preventing items from moving about the compartment during flight. The latches are typically secured on rails or other structures which are affixed to the floor or deck of the cargo compartment. Typically a hook or the like is used for providing vertical restraint of a cargo item.
Currently commercially available vertical hold-down latches are not capable of resisting impacts in two different directions. Existing vertical restraint latches typically are pivotable about a single axis, usually about a horizontal axis so that the hook can be pivoted down below the floor level to permit cargo items to be rolled over the latch. Accordingly, when the hook is impacted by a moving cargo item in the fore-aft or side-to-side direction, either the hook or the cargo, or both may be damaged.
Additionally, many of the existing vertical restraint devices are mechanically complex and require a relatively large number of specially manufactured parts. As a result, these existing devices can be prone to reliability and maintainability problems, as well as relatively costly to manufacture.
Furthermore, some of the existing vertical restraint latches require manual operation to place them in their deployed latching position. This is a disadvantage in terms of time and efficiency of the loading and unloading process.